Deerfoot looked alarmed.
“Let not my brother wait till he shoots a deer,” he said.
“Why shall he not wait?”
“Because my brother may never come back if he waits for that,” was the slurring explanation of the young Shawanoe. The Blackfoot grinned almost to his ears, displaying a set of teeth that rivaled those of the Shawanoe. No one could accept a joke better than this dusky wanderer from the Rocky Mountains.
Mul-tal-la had not been gone more than a quarter of an hour when the report of his gun was heard. Deerfoot smiled and wondered what the result had been. But it was Mul-tal-la’s moment of triumph when, soon after, he came in sight bending under the weight of the forequarters of a goodly sized deer. He had come upon three of the animals as they were plucking the tender shoots of the young trees and undergrowth. The meeting was as much of a surprise to him as to the deer themselves. A hunter could not have asked a fairer shot, and as the three terrified creatures whirled about to make off, he sent a bullet into one just back of the fore leg and brought him down.
No one ever saw the proud Blackfoot do more amazing grinning than when he emerged from the woods and flung the carcass at the feet of the Shawanoe.
“Now, if my brother wishes Mul-tal-la to bring him a buffalo, he will do so.”
Deerfoot reached out his hand and shook that of the Blackfoot.
“Mul-tal-la is a great hunter. He brings back that which he goes out to seek. Deerfoot is sorry that he said doubting words.”
“Oh, he needn’t worry, for Mul-tal-la cares not for his idle talk.”